Prescription Drugs

Prescription Drug Materials

• Retiree Organization Urges Congress to Lower Drug Prices Now; Older Americans are “Fed Up”

  June 22, 2021: Statement from Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, on the Senate Finance Committee’s Principles for Drug Pricing Reform: “Americans continue to pay the highest prices in the world for p Read More >

• Government Panel: Higher Drug Prices, not More Prescriptions, Are Driving Higher Medicare Spending

  June 21, 2021: Medicare’s spending on prescription drugs increased by 26% between 2013 and 2018 -- and high drug prices are to blame -- according to a new report from the Medicare Advisory Payment Commission (MedPAC). The expert report rebu Read More >

• Drug Prices Rose at Twice the Inflation Rate in 2020

  June 15, 2021: Leading House Democrats this week said they'll try to incorporate the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act (H.R. 3) — the bill that allows Medicare to directly negotiate reduced medication costs — into whatever infrastr Read More >

• Hearing Exposes Greed of Drug Corporation AbbVie

  May 24, 2021: According to a study released on May 18 by the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee, the pharmaceutical corporation AbbVie has raised prices 470% in the United States for its widely used drugs Humira and Imbruvica over the pa Read More >

• Mounting Evidence Demonstrates Need for Action on High Drug Prices

  May 11, 2021: As the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health held a hearing on a bill requiring Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices, a new report found that the pharmaceutical industry spent $92 million on lobbying Congress during Read More >

• Fact Sheet: Pandemic Treatment Access and Affordability (PTAA) Act

  April 26, 2021: The federal government has spent tens of billions of taxpayer dollars on research and development (R&D) of vaccines and treatments for COVID-19, including $23 billion for manufacturing and purchasing. Despite this public inves Read More >

• News: Lobbyists Fight Democratic Proposals on Drug Pricing, Vaccine Access

  April 09, 2021: Pharmaceutical corporations are preparing for battle as President Biden considers whether to waive patent protections on vaccines to help other nations fight the coronavirus and House Democrats write legislation to require Medicar Read More >

• KHN: Democrats Eye Medicare Negotiations to Lower Drug Prices

  March 25, 2021: Democrats, newly in control of Congress and the White House, are united behind an idea that Republican lawmakers and major drugmakers fiercely oppose: empowering the Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate the prices Read More >

• KHN: As Drug Prices Keep Rising, State Lawmakers Propose Tough New Bills to Curb Them

  February 16, 2021: Fed up with a lack of federal action to lower prescription drug costs, state legislators around the country are pushing bills to penalize drugmakers for unjustified price hikes and to cap payment at much-lower Canadian levels. Read More >

• KHN: Seniors Face Crushing Drug Costs as Congress Stalls on Capping Medicare Out-Of-Pockets

  January 07, 2021: Sharon Clark is able to get her life-sustaining cancer drug, Pomalyst — priced at more than $18,000 for a 28-day supply — only because of the generosity of patient assistance foundations. Clark, 57, a former insurance agent Read More >